Arthur Côme

Arthur Côme (France, 1991) is a doctoral student in film history at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

His thesis focuses on the musicality of images in French cinema of the 1920s. Winner of the 2019 Jean-Baptiste Siegel scholarship, he was a visiting researcher and then associate at the Cinémathèque française. Author of several scientific texts, he was also co-editor of Prosper Hillairet’s Passages du Cinéma, published by Paris Experimental, and is currently working as scientific and editorial director, for the Association française de recherche en histoire du cinéma, on a collection of the cinema writings of critic Paul Ramain.

His project at Villa Medici

In residence at Villa Medici, Arthur Côme will attempt to validate his hypothesis that, while cinema is the seventh art as a synthesis of the other six, music occupies a cardinal place in this hierarchy. The artistic legitimization of cinema – a process that is largely consensual today – would be due in large part to the contributions of music in general, and of Ricciotto Canudo in particular, critic and art theorist, author of the designation, cinephile as well as music lover, and whose archives are preserved in Rome.

Ricciotto Canudo Manifeste des sept arts , Gazette des Sept Arts, n° 2, january 1923.

© Portrait photography of Ricciotto Canudo, Gazette des Sept Arts, n° 10, march 1924